


A Dangerous Business

by shadoedseptmbr



Series: L'essai Et Repose [8]
Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Telling Stories, bright weapons soft feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-26
Updated: 2020-09-26
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:34:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26669776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadoedseptmbr/pseuds/shadoedseptmbr
Summary: tell me a story
Relationships: Kaidan Alenko/Female Shepard
Series: L'essai Et Repose [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1937545
Comments: 6
Kudos: 11





	A Dangerous Business

Alenko was off duty when she came into the mess, so it didn’t surprise her that he wasn’t over at his terminal. He seemed to be pretty focused, though, on whatever he was studying, so Aedan tried to get her coffee quietly and leave.  


“Hey, Commander.” He started to stand up.  


She glanced over guiltily and raised the mug in his direction, waving him down with the other hand. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to bother you. Just needed a fix before starting the report on Eletania.”  


“If you hurry, Ash’ll still be in the showers before you get back to your quarters. I’m pretty sure I can hear her swearing through the bulkhead.”  


“Don’t worry, Alenko. Next time we get to scavenge through critter shit I’ll make sure you’re on squad.”  


“Can’t wait, ma’am. Gotta live the adventure.”  


He gave her a shy grin and she had to take a sip of scalding coffee to hide the automatic reflex to grin back. There were reams of rules and regs why encouraging this…weakness she has for Kaidan and his warm brown eyes and the crinkles at the corners and fuck, he’d just asked her something. “Sorry?” she said, again.  


He stumbled a little then, “Ah, nothing. You’re busy.” He seemed pretty grateful to take a sip from his own mug, then though the slight grimace when he swallowed indicated that it had gone cold while he worked.  


And she should've marched right back to Anderso...no, _her_ quarters…and do the damned report, but…“Nope, let me hear it. Always have time for my squad. Want a warm up?”  


Aedan offered the thermal carafe that kept the coffee drinkable and rolled forward when he nodded, "If you don't mind?"

Leaning against the bulkhead, she peered over his shoulder at the datapad. “C'mon. What’re you studying? Something I need to see?” She couldn’t quite keep the tension out of her voice. Everything seemed like it ought to be about business these days.  


“Oh, it’s not work…just reading.” He assured her. “Ashley reading that bit of The Hobbit when we were stuck reminded me I had this with me.”  


She knew it had surprised them that she’d never heard of hobbits and she winced, internally. They were clearly something most people _had_ heard of and it had been a long time since she'd been caught out. Count on Anderson to leave her a bookish crew.  


“You’d remember this, if you'd read it. Listen.” He read her a section and she could feel her eyes get wider at the way his voice, husky and warm, slid over and around the words, something about not loving swords and arrows and _goddamn_ it. “Yeah, what’s up Joker?”  


“Message for you, Commander.”  


“Be right up. Another time, Alenko?”  


“Yeah. Sure. I’d like that.”

Kaidan actually did pull the datapad out when the three of them were waiting impatiently for another interminable Council meeting to end so the trio of aliens could tell her (again) that she was delusional (again) and they needed more (even more) proof. He and Ashley took turns reading favorite bits, to her bemusement.  


After he offered it to her, to keep, Shepard pretended to miss Ash’s raised eyebrow and the whispered, “Really, LT?”  


“What? She said she’d never read it. It’s a classic.” Ashley just rolled her eyes at him, though. So damn obvious to everyone, but it didn’t seem to bother the crew any.  


Aedan didn’t read it, though the night after Feros- too wound up by the cipher to sleep- she found the bit he read aloud, doing a quick search for mentions of weapons. And there's a lot, she can see why he thought she might like it. _Hell,_ Wrex _might like it_. “I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.” _Okay, well maybe not that bit_. It’s a nice idea, though. It seemed...yeah. She could see why Kaidan liked it.  


It stayed by her bedside and her squadmates read her other things while charging along in the Mako, polishing armor, fine-tuning omnitool programs. Tali read them bits of melodramatic Quarian historical fiction. Garrus and Ashley traded war poets. Liara read them ancient fables the Asari told each other about Protheans. Joker quoted some author called Heinlein as they bounced across Luna. Wrex grumbled but he listened almost as closely as Shepard did.  


Post Virmire, none of them felt like telling stories after the wake. Kaidan taught Tali and Garrus poker, instead, in the long dark when none of them could sleep.  


The night before Ilos, it was propped up against her lamp and Kaidan smiled to see it. Aedan could tell he was thinking about picking it up to see where she’d gotten to, if she’d found a favorite bit but she swiveled out of her black Alliance issue panties then and prowled towards the bed. Made sure he wasn’t thinking about any story but hers.  


The Council called her back to the Citadel for a small ceremony the night before they bounced to the Terminus systems to chase down rumors of Geth. The party was dull and filled with people trying to ignore the shattered windows, shut down wards. After the aliens were finished talking over her, Shepard used her SPECTRE status to get them to the top of the tallest hotel she could find on the SilverSun Strip. They were sprawled underneath the shielded ceiling, a few inches of kinetic barrier and transparent aluminum between them and every star in the galaxy.

Kaidan recited a few lines with his head pillowed on her leg and she finally asked him, "When did you start reading this stuff? You've got so much memorized." His eyes were so warm and even as her fingers trailed through his hair, Aedan shivered at the tenderness that was still so new and fragile in her chest.  


“My folks, I guess. Mom's a literature professor, with a specialty in folklore translations. Dad liked to find her bits of things, even alien stories once he went off-world. It's sort of how I met the galaxy. They’d save things to read to each other. He’d send us funny folktales, bedtime stories. It...just seemed like the thing to do when I wanted your attention.”  


There were crinkles around his eyes. Something was amusing him and she couldn't quite add it... _Oh._ "I'm sorry, you were flirting? Reading stories about swords and hobbits to me?" She couldn't help grinning at him, these days. 

"Might've been. Did it work?" His grin was downright _wicked_. That's his sly side showing up, she thought. She was going to meet all his sides, now. Learn to read all his faces. Maybe there'd be time.

“Yeah. It’s nice. I like it.” She swallowed hard, trying to find the words to tell him.  


He caught her hand and kissed it, seemed to sense the shift in her mood. “I’ll keep it up, then. Hey, come here.”

It got easier to kiss him, every time she did it.

Kaidan's datapad was still there beside her bed, fragile plasglass and circuitry, when the Collector ship ripped through the Normandy like 200 year old paper. Maybe it burned. Maybe it was still floating, waiting to catch the gravity well of the planet below.  


When Kasumi showed Shepard her row of antique books, maybe she shouldn’t have been surprised to see a copy, bound in green with gold lettering. It’s a classic, Kaidan had told her. The little thief happily let Shepard borrow the treasure.  


And when Kasumi came back from breakfast, the morning after they’d washed the dirt and blood of Horizon off their boots, she found it neatly slotted back in the same spot, as if it had never been opened.


End file.
